Samantha Adams: So did you know that your husband had taken two other wives?
Deborah Taylor: Of course I knew. How could I not? I made it all possible. Did you think John capable of scheming on this level with any degree of success? Nonsense.
Samantha Adams: Why on earth would you help him?
Deborah Taylor: Simple. To keep him.
Samantha Adams: [pause] I’m sorry?
Deborah Taylor: It was the only way.
Samantha Adams: Can you explain that, please?
Deborah Taylor: John started his . . . wandering . . . precisely eight years ago. Cynthia, our youngest daughter, had just left for her freshman year at Berkeley. There we were, John and I, alone together in the house for the first time in nearly twenty-five years. Our days consisted primarily of long silences punctuated by bursts of temper. It made clear what both of us had suspected. The marriage was dead.
Shortly after, John took up with a nurse at the hospital. He tried to do it surreptitiously. As if I couldn’t tell from Day One. I confronted him. We discussed it, openly. We didn’t argue about it. But I was adamant. He could see his nurse. Have his sordid little affair. But no divorce. Never would I agree. If he tried I would fight it, take everything he had, would do my best to ensure the children never spoke to him again. I don’t think I’d have had much luck making that latter threat come true. The children—well, at least Cynthia and Evan—worship John. Charles is more difficult to read.
It was the threat of taking away the children’s affections, rather than the money, that got to John. He felt his own betrayal of me more than I did, couldn’t believe that others wouldn’t judge him as harshly as he was judging himself. John didn’t have much confidence in his ability to command affection from people. Ironic, when he was one of the most beloved of men. Truly. Ask around at his clinic. He had warmth, a vulnerability even, that was tremendously endearing if you were susceptible in that way. I wasn’t. Not anymore, at least.
I monitored the situation with the nurse. As I suspected, it soon turned serious. John would never be satisfied with a casual affair. He would always need more. I put an end to it. I don’t want to go into the details now. Suffice it to say I scared her off. My tactics may have been heavy-handed, but they worked. John was in despair. “I must have love,” he said. “If you won’t love me, I need to find someone who will.”
I didn’t mind him having cheap flings. “You may indulge yourself if you like,” I told him. “But nothing that threatens our marriage, nothing that prevents you from coming home every night to me.” But he didn’t want fleeting affairs. He wanted the real thing. And I wanted to continue being Mrs. John Taylor. Younger women may mock me, may think me lacking in character, or ambition, or dignity—I know my daughter would—but that’s the way I was raised.
We were at an impasse.
This lasted for a year. To say we were both unhappy would be an understatement. I had always run a harmonious household, needed things to be regulated, to run smoothly. And they weren’t anymore. John was drinking, he was depressed, we were having real fights for the first time.
Late one night after a particularly bad fight we worked out a deal. He could have a serious relationship. He could seek love. He could even get married again, if he found someone he loved who loved him back. But whoever she was, she was not to know about me. She was not to have entrée into his public, professional life—he had to choose an outsider to our world. I was Mrs. John Taylor. And he had to be home by 5:30 every morning, to shower, dress, and eat breakfast in our house before going to work, before making his rounds. His car would be parked in our driveway as our neighbors roused themselves and left for work. How he managed that was his business.
It took him a year before all the variables lined up right for him. He met that MJ creature in some Silicon Valley bar, and courted her. With my permission. Eventually they had some hippy wedding, but legitimate as far as she knew. I continued to organize his life. I controlled the household, paid the bills, and kept his calendar. I kept him straight. I even booked his flights down to LA when he found someone there, too.
Samantha Adams: So you were an accomplice to a crime. Bigamy. Or whatever it is when three wives are involved. Didn’t that bother you?
Deborah Taylor: Why, are you going to charge me?